European Shares Extend Losses For Third Day

RTTNews

Aug. 11, 2017, 04:53 AM

(RTTNews) - European stocks fell for a third day on Friday and looked headed for their worst week since early November last year, as U.S. President Donald Trump's rhetoric on North Korea over the past few days made investors risk averse.

Commodity-related stocks were among the worst performers against the backdrop of heightened political uncertainty after Trump further ratcheted up the rhetoric, suggesting that his "fire and fury" comments may not have been tough enough.

The president said "things will happen to them they never thought possible" should Pyongyang attack the United States or its allies.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 was down nearly 1 percent at 372.49 in late opening deals, taking its weekly loss to 2.6 percent.

The German DAX was moving down half a percent, France's CAC 40 index was down over 1 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was declining 1.1 percent.

Energy giant Total SA lost 1 percent and Tullow Oil fell more than 5 percent as oil extended overnight losses on persistent worries about oversupply.

Innogy shares dropped 1.5 percent. The German utility maintained the outlook on the current year's business performance after reporting a fall in first-half net income to 817 million euros from 1.08 billion euros last year.

Old Mutual fell over 2 percent. The British financial services firm, which is in the middle of breaking up into four parts, plans to list two divisions in 2018.

German carmaker Volkswagen was little changed after ending discussions with Tata Motors on a potential alliance.

In economic releases, German consumer inflation grew an annual 1.7 percent in July, slightly faster than the 1.6 percent increase registered in June, final data from Destatis showed.

This was the fastest since April and came in line with the flash estimate published on July 28. The wholesale price inflation eased to an eight-month low of 2.2 percent in July from 2.5 percent in June.

French consumer prices climbed 0.7 percent year-on-year in July, the same rate as seen in June and in line with the preliminary estimate.